I was among 5,000 fortunate beings who attended 5 x 2hour sessions by His Holiness on this wonderful text, written in the 8th century. The translation He used was by Stephen Batchelor, and varies in some respects to the translation I include in my list of books.
As always with His Holiness, He started off with a gentle hour or so talking generalities, then He turned to the text - and jumped straight to Chapter 9 - Perfection of Wisdom. This is perhaps the most difficult part of the text, as deals in depth with Emptiness and the philosophical arguments to support the concepts. He stayed on this for the best part of two sessions. He covered in some detail the conventional appearance of the five skandhas or aggregates, the understanding of which is so important.
There was one moment when, in a combination of His words and gestures, I knew "I've got IT!" - and then, in that same instant, IT was gone! Maybe that is Emptiness?
Once again I experienced the joyfulness of just hearing His Holiness reading and commenting on the text in Tibetan. Without understanding a word, I had the feeling I was receiving His teaching, and the teachings of all the masters who were His teachers, in a truly authentic transmission. Conceptual, cognitive understanding was unnecessary. Just receiving the transmission was joyful, enlightening and beneficial to all sentient beings.
I urge all people who have the opportunity to attend any session by His Holiness to make every endeavour to attend. Forget about motivation, understanding and learning, just be there. You will find yourself becoming content with just where you are at the time and you will find yourself smiling a lot, not just at His frequent outbursts of humour. It's just good to be with Him - and with any of the other authentic teachers that we are so blessed to have visit us so frequently.
Yours in Dharma, Vajramate.
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